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What has become of my country?My Nepal, what has become of you?Your features have changed with time.The innocent face of the KumariHas changed to the blood-thirsty countenanceOf Kal Bhairab,From development to destruction,From bikas to binas.
A crown prince fell in love,But couldn’t assert himself,In a palace where ancient traditions still prevail.Despite Eton college and a liberal education,He chose guns instead of rhetoric,And ended his young life,As well as those of his parentsAnd other royal members.

An aunt from London aptly remarked,‘He was like the terminator.’Another bloodshed in a Gorkha palace,Recalling the Kot massacreUnder Jung Bahadur Rana.

You’re no longer the sameThere’s insurrection and turmoilAgainst the government and the police."Your sons and daughtersAre at war again.Maobadis with revolutionary flair,With ideologies from across the Tibetan PlateauAnd Peru.

Ideologies that have been discredited elsewhere,Flourish in the Himalayas.Demanding a revolutionary-taxFrom tourists and NepalisWith brazen, bloody attacksFighting for their own rights,The rights of the bewilderedCommon man.

Well-trained government troops at the ordersOf politicians safe in Kathmandu.Leaders who despise talks and compromises,Flexed their tongues and muscles,And let the imported automatic salves speak their deaths.
Ill-armed guerrillas against well-armed Royal GurkhasIn the foothills of the Himalayas.

Nepali children have no choice,But to take sidesTo take to armsNot knowing the reasonAnd against whom.The child-soldier gets ordersFrom grown-ups.The hapless souls open fire.Hukum is order,The child-soldier cannot reason why.Shedding precious human blood,For causes they both hold high.

Ach, this massacreIn the shadow of the Himalayas.Nepalis look outOf their ornate windows,In the west, east,North and south NepalAnd think:How long will this krieg go on?How much do we have to suffer?How many money-lenders, businessmen, civil servants,Policemen and gurkhas do the Maobadis want to killOr be killed?

How many men, women, boys and girls have to be mortally injuredTill Kal Bhairab is pacified by the Sleeping Vishnu?How many towns and villages in the seventy five districtsDo the Maobadis want to free from capitalism?When the missionaries close their schools,Must the Hindus and Buddhists shut their temples and shrines?Shall atheism be the order of the day?Not in Nepal.
It breaks my heart,As I hear over the radio:Nepal’s not safe for visitors.Visitors who leave their money behind,In the pockets of travel agencies,Rug dealers, currency and drug dealers,Hordes of ill-paid honest SherpasAnd Tamang porters.Sweat beads trickling from their sun-burnt faces,In the dizzy heights of the Dolpo,Annapurna rangesAnd the Khumbu glaciers.Eking out a living and facing the treacherousIcy crevasses, snow-outs, precipicesAnd a thousand deaths.
Beyond the beaten trekking pathsLive the poorer families of Nepal.No roads,No schools,Sans drinking water,Sans hospitals,Where aids and children’s work prevail.

Lichhavis, Thakuris and Mallas have made you eternalMan Deva inscribed his title on the pillar of Changu,After great victories over neighbouring states.Amshu Verma was a warrior,Who mastered the Lichavi Code.He gave his daughter in marriageTo Srong Beean Sgam Po,The ruler of Tibet,Who also married a Chinese princess.Jayastathi Malla ruled long and introducedThe system of the caste,A system based on family occupation,That became rigid with the tide of time.Yaksha Malla,The ruler of Kathmandu Valley,Divided it into Kathmandu,Patan and BhadgaonFor his three sons.

It was Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha,Whobrought you together,As a melting pot of ethnic diversities.With Gorkha conquests that cost the motherlandThousands of ears, noses and Nepali bloodThe Ranasusurped the royal throneAnd put a prime minister after the otherFor 104 years.104 years of a country in povertyAnd medieval existence.

It was King Tribhuvan’s proclamation,The blood of the Nepalis,Who fought against the GorkhasUnder the command of the Ranas,That ended the Rana autocracy.His son King Mahendra saw to itThat he held the septreWhen Nepal entered the UNO.

The multiparty systemAlong with the Congress partyWas banned.

Then came thirty years of Panchayat promisesOf a Hindu ruleWith a system based on the five village elders,Like the proverbial five fingers in one’s hand,That are not alike,Yet functioned in harmony.The Panchayat government was indeed an old system,Packed and soldAs a new and traditional one.

A system is just as goodAs the people who run it.And Nepal didn’t run.It revived the age-old chakary,Feudalism with its countless spies and yes-men,Middle-men who held out their handsFor bribes, perks and amenities.Poverty, caste-system with its divisions and conflicts,Discrimination, injustice, bad governanceBecame the nature of the day.

A big chasm appearedBetween the haves-and-have-nots.The social inequality,Frustrated expectations of the poorLed to a search for an alternative pole.

The farmers were ignored,The forests and land confiscated,Corruption and inefficiency becameThe rule of the day.

Even His Majesty’s servantsWent so far as to say:Raja ko kam, Kahiley jahla gham.

The birthplace of BuddhaAnd the Land of Pashupati,A land which King Birendra declaredA Zone of Peace,Through signatures of the world’s leadersWas at war again.

Bush’s government paid 24 million dollarsFor development aid,Another 14 million dollarsFor insurgency relevant spendings5,000 M-16 rifles from the USA5,500 maschine guns from Belgium.Guns that were aimed at Nepali men, women and children,In the mountains of Nepal.Alas, under the shade of the Himalayas,This corner of the world became volatile again.

The educated people changes sides,From Mandalay to CongressFrom Congress to the Maobadis.The students from Dolpo and Silgadi,Made unforgettable by Peter MathiessenIn his quest for his inner selfAnd his friend George Schaller’s searchFor the snow leopard,Wrote Marxist verses,Acquired volumesFrom the embassies in Kathmandu:Kim Il Sung’s writings,Mao’s red booklet,Marx’s Das Kapital,Lenin’s works,And defended socialist ideasAt His Majesty’s Central HostelAt Tahachal.

I saw their earnest faces,With guns in their armsInstead of books,Boistrous and ready to fightTo the endFor a cause they cherishedIn their frustrated and fiery hearts.

But aren’t these sons of Nepal misguided and blindedBy the seemingly victories of socialism?Even Gorbachov pleaded for Peristroika,And Putin admires Germany,Its culture and commerce.Look at the old Soviet Union,Other East Bloc nations.They have all swapped sides,Are EU and NATO members.Globalisation has changed the world fast,But in Nepal time stands stillThe blind beggar at the New Road gate sings:Lata ko desh ma, gaddha tantheri.
In a land where the tongue-tied live,The deaf desire to rule.Oh my Nepal, quo vadis?The only way to peace and harmony isBy laying aside the arms.Can Nepal afford to be the bastionOf a movement and a governmentThat rides rough-shodOver the lives and rights of fellow Nepalis?

Can’t we learn from the lessonsOf Afghanistan and Iraq?The Maobadis were given a chance at the polls,Like all other democratic parties.Maobadis are bahuns and chettris,Be they Prachanda or Baburam Bhattrai,Leaders who’d prefer to be republicansIn the shadow of the Himalayas?

It’s just not true.Not for a Nepalese,Born with a sarangi in his hand.I’m a musician,One of the lower casteIn the Hindu hierarchy.I bring delight to my listeners,Hope to touch the heartsOf my spectators.I sing about love,Hate and evil,Kings and Queens,Princes and Princesses,The poor and the rich,The Maoists and democrats,Madeshis and Paharis,And the fight for existence,In the craggy foothillsAnd the towering heightsOf the Himalayas.

The Abode of the Snows,Where Buddhist and HinduGods and Goddesses reside,And look over mankindAnd his folly.

I was born in Tanhau,A nondescript hamlet in Nepal,Were it not for Bhanu Bhakta AcharyaWho was born here,The poet who translated the Ramayana,From high-flown Sanskrit into simple NepaliFor all to read.

I remember the first dayMy father handed me a sarangi.He taught me how to hold and swing the bow.I was delighted with the first squeaks it made,As I moved the bow on the taught horsetail strings.It was as though my small sarangiWas talking with me.I was so happy,I and my sarangi,My sarangi and me.Tears of joy ran down my cheeks.I was so thankful.I touched my Papa’s feet,As is the custom in the Himalayas.I could embrace the whole world.

My father taught me the tones,And the songs to go with them,For we gaineys are minstrelsWho wander from place to place,Like gypsies,Like butterflies in Spring.We are a restless folkTo be seen everywhere,Where people dwell,For we live from their charityAnd our trade.The voice of the gainey,The sad melody of the sarangi.A boon to those who love the lyrics,A nuisance to those who hate it.

Many a time, we’ve been kicked and beatenBy young people who prefer canned music,From their ghetto-blasters.Outlandish melodies,Electronic beats you can’t catch up with.Spinning on their heads,Hip-hopping like robots,Not humans.

It’s the techno, ecstasy generationWhere have all the old melodies gone?The Nepalese folksongs of yore?The song of the Gainey?

“This is globanisation,” they told me.The grey-eyed visitors from abroad,‘Quirays’ as we call them in Nepal.Or ‘gora-sahibs’ in Hindustan.

The quirays took countless pictures of me,With their cameras,Gave handsome tips.A grey-haired didi with spectacles,And teeth in like a horse’s mouth,Even gave me a polaroid-pictureOf me,With my sarangi,My mountain violin.

Sometimes I look my fading pictureAnd wonder how fast time flows.My smile is disappearing,Grey hair at the sides,The beginning of baldness.I’ve lost a lot of my molars,At the hands of the BarbierFrom Muzzafapur in the Indian plains,He gave me clove oilTo ease my pain,As he pulled out my fouled teeth,In an open-air salonRight near the Tribhuvan Highway.

I still have my voiceAnd my sarangi,And love to sing my repertoire,Even though many peopleSneer and jeer at me,And prefer Bollywood textsFrom my larynx.

To please their whims,I learned even Bollywood songs,Against my will,Eavesdropping behind cinema curtains,To please the touristsAnd my country’s modern youth,I even learned some English songs.

Oh money, dear money.I’ve become a cultural prostitute.I’ve done my Zunft, my trade,An injustice,But I did it to survive.I had to integrate myselfAnd to assimilateIn my changing society.

Time has not stood stillUnder the shadow of the Himalayas.

One day when I was much younger,I was resting under a Pipal treeWhen I saw one beautiful tourist girl.I looked and smiled at her.She caressed her hair,And smiled back.For me it was love at first sight.All the while gazing at herI took out my small sarangi,With bells on my fiddle bowAnd played a sad Nepali melodyComposed by Ambar Gurung,Which I’d learned in my wanderingsFrom Ilam to Darjeeling.

I am the SkyYou are the Soil,Even though we yearnA thousand times,We cannot be together.

I was sentimental that moment.Had tears in my eyesWhen I finished my song.’

The blonde woman sauntered up to me,And said in a smooth voice,‘Thank you for the lovely song.Can you tell me what it means?’

I felt a lump on my throatAnd couldn’t speakFor a while.

Then, with a sigh, I said,‘We have this caste system in Nepal.When I first saw you,I imagined you were a fair bahun girl.We aren’t allowed to fall in loveWith bahunis.It is a forbidden love,A love that can never come true.

I love youBut I can’t have you.’‘But you haven’t even tried,’Said the blonde girl coyly.‘I like your golden hair,Your blue eyes.It’s like watching the sky.’‘Oh, thank you,Danyabad.

She asked: ‘But why do you say:‘We cannot be together?’‘We are together now,’ I replied,But the society does not like